Space saving servo gearheads reduce backlash

Designed to be compact and lightweight through a combination of right-angle design and a cast aluminium-magnesium alloy body; the SWG ensures high torsional stiffness and high permissible overloads, as well as reducing noise to less than 55dB for near-silent operation.

The SWG is available with three levels of precision: a standard version offering better than 10 arcmin, a precision version offering better than 3 arcmin, and a high precision version offering better than 1 arcmin. This exceptionally low backlash performance makes the SWG suitable for use in the most demanding servo applications.

The gearhead employs an extra wide worm wheel for higher loads and increased torsional stiffness. The manufacturer has developed a special computer optimised gear contact pattern that ensures less stress and longer life. Indeed the SWG is rated for a lifetime of 25,000 hours.

A combination of taper roller bearings and floating ball bearings on the input eliminates the need for adjustment due to preload, and permits higher input speeds of up to 6,000rpm. The double taper roller bearing gives the gearbox higher stiffness and reduces vibration, while the floating ball bearing allows the worm shaft to expand as temperature increases, eliminating side load and improving service life.

In addition, the use of oversized taper roller bearings on the output shaft maximises radial load capacity. The SWG range covers 11 gearbox sizes from SWG 30 to SWG 4800, with input shaft diameters from 14mm to 100mm and torque ratings from 29Nm to 7833Nm. Gear ratios are available from 5.125:1 up to 90:1. Output options include single and dual output shaft, hollow shaft with keyway or shrink disc, and robot flange.

Maintenance-free, the SWG gearboxes are supplied life lubricated with high performance polyglycol lubricant. Drive Lines’ Managing Director, Ian Carr, commented: “The SWG has been designed to meet the needs of the most demanding servo drive applications, including high accuracy tasks in manufacturing machine and assembly control systems. With their low weight, high load capability, exceptional backlash performance and flexible integration options, these proven gearheads are ideal for size or weight critical automated assembly and packaging tasks. They also offer an unbeatable price to performance ratio.”

For users who are unsure of the right choice of gearhead for a given task, Drive Lines product experts are always on hand to give application specific advice.